"What the fuck!" I exclaimed, jumping away from the body.

It made no sense. It made no actual sense. Have you ever been in a situation where you couldn't quite explain in simple terms? This was that. My sister's body was gone and in her place was a monster.

"Gruesome, ain't it?"

“What did you do to her?” I shouted, bringing my fists back up.

“Calm yourself, mate. We’ve already done this bit. You can’t beat me. You can’t beat him. It’s tiring,” Blake said, giving me a tired look.

And, by this time, even you know he was right. I mean, Blake was right. He had shown that much and Mark lifted me off the floor with a single grab. I was obviously and literally out of my element but I couldn’t bring my hands down. Tears held at the corners of my eyes as I tried to decide on my next course of action.

The door opened and the fox-masked girl walked in to stand between us.

“Once again, you’re doing it wrong,” she said in a flat tone and Blake gave her a surprised look.

Her ‘face’ turned to me and she pointed for me to seat. I hesitated for a brief moment before taking it. My eyes fixed itself back on the figure on the ground. The horns, the eyes and how much it used to look like my sister.

The fox-masked girl sat opposite me, leaned forward.

“I am truly sorry for your sister and your mother but I’m afraid to inform you that they have been dead longer than you’ve known,” she said carefully.

“What do you mean?” I replied before I knew what I was doing.

I heard some shuffling sound like something was being moved and I turned to see Blake dragging the body of the creature away from the room. He exited, glancing at me and giving me a sympathetic smile while Mark frowned as he followed his companion.

For a brief moment, hope flared in my mind as I considered the petite figure sitting across from me. I felt like if I just managed to wrap my hands around her throat, I could probably squeeze faster than she could react. I could…

“You can’t beat me, Will. I’m stronger than the guys. And I used to be in the army. If you so much as attack, I will fuck you up,” she said, her eyes fixed to mine.

I gulped and repeated my question.

“What do you mean?” I said, gritting my teeth.

She smiled at me like Blake had done before she started talking.

“The creature you saw, we don’t have a name for them. Our knowledge is honestly scarce so we tend to work on what we know. What we know is that are not from here,” she said, point randomly around us.

“Not from here?” I asked.

“From here,” she repeated before sighing.

Her hand touched her mask, moving it to the side so that I could see her mouth. There was a slight scar on her lips like it had been cut. The scar was faded but it reminded me of the gouges I had seen on Blake’s face. Whatever was happening had been brutal to them. I shook my head, angry that I was feeling sympathy for them.

“Ever heard or read anything science-y about Dimensions and Reality and shit?” she asked.

“What? Like different dimensions? You’re implying that the creature is from a different dimension?”

“Precisely. The creature and its ilk, are from a different dimension,” she said.

“Yeah. Bullshit. You lot are doing human experiments and you used my sister,” I spat back at her.

She smiled.

“I wish it was experimentation, mate. I mean, we do experiments, but not on humans,” she said.

I looked at her, frowning. There was no way I would listen to the reasons she was giving me. Dimensions? Creatures from different dimensions? She must have thought we were living in a Doctor Who episode. I scoffed and turned my head away from her.

“The creatures weren’t initially able to come into our dimension,” she said, ignoring my reactions, “In truth, we didn’t know they existed until some fuckers in white decided it would be fun to weaken the walls between our dimensions.”

“Yeah sure. Why would they do that?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t they? They were scientists,” she said, laughing, “Those fuckers would blow a hole through the sun just to see if it was possible.”

I kept quiet, trying to reason out why she was telling me such a shit story. Honestly, I was weary at this point. Tired, achy and fed up. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my sister and my brother safe. I wanted to be free of whatever this hell was.

“You find it hard to believe, don’t you? Fuck me, you’re a wet one,” she said, resting on the chair.

She pursed her lips as if considering something.

“You’ve tortured me, sent random fucking fingers to my home. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the tongue. Who the fuck does that? You killed my mum, my sister and I don’t even fucking know if my brother is safe!” I shouted.

She kept looking at me and I saw her lips twitch at the corners as if she was trying to smile.

“What’s so funny? You… you… Fucking Blake or Blank or whatever. He played a game in my office, you know… Caused the deaths of colleagues. I don’t even know where Katie is. Where is she, uh?”

I was close to screaming the room down by now. She continued to stare at me like I was some kind of sideshow. Pain welled up in me and I wanted to lash out at something. At anything. I was barely hanging on to myself when a pair of goggles appeared in her hand.

She extended the goggles to me and my attention shifted from it to her and then back to it.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“Wear it and look outside the window above your chair,” she said.

I frowned at the goggles and she waved it impatiently at me. I cautiously took it from her and put them on. The goggles had a soft green tint to the lenses and it gave everything a lime-ish view to it. My frown deepened when I looked at the fox-masked girl and saw her without the mask.

“What…?” I murmured and she grinned, pointing upwards behind me.

“Go on. See the truth outside the window,” she said, playfully.

I got up from the seat, pushing it until it rested on the wall. I glanced at her and she waved me on. Climbing up on the seat, I pulled myself up to the barred windows and it was then that I noticed I was on the top floor of some random building.

The metal bars were sturdy in my hands and I knew there was no way I could yank it off even if I tried, you know. It was heavy, well-placed stuff. I pulled on it a few times to be certain and yeah, it was bolted on tight.

“Look at the people, Will. You’re wasting my time,” she said from behind me.

I nodded half-heartedly, shifting my attention to the people walking around in the distance. A little part of me considered shouting for help but I was sure that the fox-masked chick behind me would probably see me dead long before any help came.

I don’t know if it was that the goggles took forever to activate but one minute, I was looking at randoms walking about, the next minute, the randoms had been replaced by three horned creatures who were slinking about.

Seeing them walk was different. Normal people walked on two legs, like fucking normal, you know. Sure, the pace might be different, the bounce in their steps, the swagger, the whole works. All of that makes each person’s walk different. But these creatures, they all walked the same.

I couldn’t see much of the creature that replaced Sarah… or that was Sarah… but below their waist, they didn’t have normal legs. Each of the creatures had hoofs for legs, like freaking Satyrs, you know. And behind them, from what I guess is their tail bone, was a tail. The tail differed from creature to creature and it slinked behind them as they moved.

They walked, hunched forward as if ready to run but they never changed their pace. There was no swagger, nothing. There was nothing different from their walks. And, as if to make matters worse, all the creatures I could see from the window of the room stopped.

And then, in unison, all turned to face me.